How can we improve?

Following on from the success of the last question that I posted on my blog, here is a new question for the community to ponder on. I will be putting new questions up fairly regularly throughout the year so that we are gathering information and ideas from parents and families consistently, rather than just at the end of the year.

The previous question, asking for words which are important to you, garnered nearly 100 responses. All the words used were fed into wordle.com and the picture shown here was created. The bigger words were used more often!

Please take a moment to complete the simple form below. Thanks.

What a great day!

Yesterday was our Summer Carnival and what a great event it was. The weather was kind to us and it was fantastic to see so many children and their families having a great time together. The line of children waiting to dunk me in the drink was a bit worrying but I'm not taking it personally. ;-)

The event was held to raise money for our playground project and the early indications are that we have made a significant amount, hopefully enough to make our playground dream come true. The next step is for us to have the plans priced by some building firms and start the building process.

A huge thank you to everyone who attended on Sunday; those who donated their time, goods and services and especially to the carnival committee who worked so hard to make the day such a success.

THANK YOU!

The power of words

I have been working on our Charter for 2009 and I was reflecting on how to gather the views of the community more effectively. In the past we have always sent out an annual survey to the parent community but the return rate has been fairly low. So I am trying a slightly different approach. Over the next few weeks and months I am going to post short questions on my blog for anyone to respond to. I am hoping that by breaking the survey into small sections which only take a few seconds to respond to, we may increase the number of responses that we get. I will be including this in a newsletter for people who do not have access to a computer.

So here is the first question - (the words entered here will go towards making a "wordle" image, like the one shown above, that clearly shows what the priorities are for our community)

Well done boys!

Three boys from Team 14 had an amazing success today. They went to Auckland to attend the awards ceremony for the TVNZ Netguide Schools Web Challenge and they were awarded third place in the Primary category. To read more go to the Netguide website.

The boys produced a website called teamdyslexia. It is a fabulous site which Julius, Jack and Angus spent many hours working on, with some help from Sue and Rob. Great work boys, you should be very proud, we certainly are!

ESOL Wiki

It has been a while since I explored the ESOL wiki that Glenys and June maintain, with the help of their children, so I thought I'd have a read and see what they are up to. It just goes to show the power of the Internet! The amazing progress being made by our children, for whom English is not their first language, is there for all to see.
Children's minds are truly remarkable. They are able to not only master the art of communicating in a new language but also distinguish between two, or sometimes more, languages. Reading through the children's pages on the wiki, you cannot fail to be impressed. The wiki's address is http://fendaltonesol.wetpaint.com/ and is well worth a visit.

A packed term ahead.

Two days in and already term 4 is shaping up to be a big one. Reports, class placements, interviewing for teaching positions and solving some of our property headaches just for starters. Should be good fun!

We are hoping to open the swimming pool in a few weeks time and, if the good weather continues, it should be nice and warm for the first few classes taking a dip.

We are working hard on plans for seating and shade areas in the playground and I am hoping that we will have something to display in the next couple of weeks. Then we can start to get feedback from the whole community on the ideas. The project is the focus of our Summer Carnival fundraising efforts so fingers crossed for plenty of sunshine on the 9th of November.

Summer's back

The sun joined us today as we ended Term 3 on a high. The children and staff love having the warm weather back and let's hope that it is a good omen for Term 4. I'm heading away to Australia during the 2 week break, which I'm very excited about.

Voting is now open for our Photography Competition and everyone and anyone is welcome to vote for their favourite snap. The children have been using their creative energies to take some inspired shots over the last few weeks and you can see the photos they have taken on the main school website. It is really simple to vote so please do!

Happy Holidays!

Arts Week

The real sun is back this week, but last week the school was lit up in other ways, by the children's art work!

Arts Week was an unqualified success. Highlights included the senior school performance at the Ngai Marsh theatre on the Monday; a magical night of musical talent on Thursday; buskers in the playground every day; and the marvellous art gallery created with the children's work in the village all week.

The focus of the week was dance, drama and music as well as the visual arts. A photography competition was held through the week and we have some children with an amazing eye for what makes a good picture.

The children in Room 19 have been reflecting on the week and you can
read their thoughts here.

Student Led Conferences

It is approaching a year since I started as Principal of Fendalton School and I am about to experience Student Led Conferences for the first time. I just missed these last year but I have been told that they are remarkable, a real insight into how our children learn. The idea behind the conference is that the children lead their parents or carers through their learning, explaining their successes and their goals while the teachers are present to add clarification on the very rare occasion where it is necessary.

I have spent time in the middle school this week, chatting with the children about Student Led Conferences and their preparations for them. It is great to witness how proud the children are of their work and how well some of them know what their next steps are. I look forward to seeing how the actual conferences run and talking to parents about the system.

Olympic Games and Elephant Birds

Last Thursday, we held our very own Olympic Games! All the children took part in an opening and closing ceremony and, sandwiched in between, they competed in a wide array of sports from Welly Wanging (gumboot throwing) to Synchronised Swimming on dry land. Everyone had a fab day and I even got to dress up as a Greek God for my role in the opening ceremony.

This week is book week and it started with a bang this morning as children performed scenes from their favourite books in assembly. Miranda, Rob and I then performed our unique take on the Dr Seuss story, Horton Hatches the Egg. As you can see from the photo I became an elephant bird for the climax of the story!

Book week is an opportunity for our children to read even more than usual, to try out new genres and to share their favourite stories with each other. The staff are swopping classes to read their favourite books and tomorrow we will all be dressing up as characters from some of those books. Other highights of the week will include several DEAR moments where we will all stop whatever we are doing to Drop Everything And Read.

Dragons, Lambs and an Enchanted Forest!

Last week was the first week that I was able to meet my new target of spending two days a week in the classrooms. I spent all day on Tuesday and Friday in the Junior team, working alongside the teachers and children, talking about their work and sharing in their successes. It was certainly an interesting week, which included meeting a couple of new born lambs with room 4, witnessing the creation of an enchanted forest in room 3 and learning all about the Olympic mascots in room 5.

The variety of learning experiences that our youngest children are being exposed to is truly remarkable. Our children were able to show me how they use laptops in class, how phonics work for them and they even explained what a unicorn's horn is for (apparently it is a bit like a steering wheel). Rooms 1 and 2 showed me how their topic based approach to literacy was making a difference to them and room 21 shared their impressive letter recognition and reading progress.

It was great to see how quickly our youngest children have adopted the Key Competencies as their own. I witnessed children being great team players as they shared the excitement of two lambs being fed; communicators as they taught each other how to use sign language in room 13; great thinkers in room 12 shared their peer assessments of each other's work; dream makers in room 6 told about their ideas for improving the junior play areas.

There was sparkle everywhere!

It's on to the middle team next for me and I can't wait to find out what they will teach me!

New Learning for me!

Since I started in the position of Principal at Fendalton School nearly a year ago I have had one frustration that I have been unable to overcome. My mentor would tell you that I have consistantly complained about one thing in our sessions, that he has offered several very good solutions to this disatisfaction, but that I have still not been able to shake it. One single question, which seems simple enough, remains unanswered after 11 months in the job.

How can I spend less time in the office and more time where the real action is, in the classrooms?

I may have found an answer......

At the end of last term, Miranda, Rob and I attended the New Zealand Principals' Federation Annual conference here in Christchurch. It proved to be a breakthrough experience which may well change the way that I work.

One of the Keynote speakers at the conference was Malachi Pancoast from a consulting firm in the US called "The Breakthrough Coach." He spoke three times at the conference about how to apply effective management practice to the running of school front offices – practices that free Principals up from technical front office work and instead allow them to spend two full days a week in classrooms. It was as if he had felt my frustrations and flown over to answer them directly!

Much of what Malachi had to say was common sense and obvious when you think about it but he was able to clarify ideas in a way which made me question the way I work and the kind of jobs that I have been doing. It is little wonder that I haven't been able to get into the classrooms.

So I will be making some changes to the way I work. These changes may well take a while to fully implement and probably a year or two to perfect but they will have an impact and put me where I need to be, where the learning is! These changes will mean that it becomes harder to make an immediate meeting with me but we will work hard on the system to make sure that it works for everyone.